This has to stop... Please DPG....

GMs be like

I would agree that it's not 100% or 0% but it's definitely not 99.9%.

Just because you run around with ShowEQ so you can watch other guilds clear OW VT mobs doesn't mean that everyone does that.

That would be quite interesting.

Considering I've escalated my petition and I am discussing my refund / cancellation options with them - by all means if they find I'm lying they are welcome to ban my accounts. To my knowledge I have not actually violated the rules.

I really do enjoy playing this game with my kids who are 6, 8, and 11 and to be honest due to their ages not only do they not play this game unsupervised they do not have free and ready access to the chat system. If they need to interact with an NPC via /say I help them with it but as you know in this game there really are not _that_ many quests. My kids mostly just enjoy running around and exploring.

If a GM were to show up and be visible in front of any of them - not only would I notice it if I did somehow miss it - my kids would certainly point it out. GM Swords and that green name is pretty unique and that's the idea. If I didn't see it myself while supervising my kids would certainly point it out and I could then communicate with the GM as needed.

When a tell comes in my kids get my attention if I don't already see it and then I assist them in responding if necessary but more often than not tells are ignored. That said if a GM sent them a tell I'd see it and it would be responded to.

As it is right now my kids will most definitely get banned in under a minute if a GM decides to AFK check them. As it stands a GM shows up, says something in /say that none of the kids will see, and then they'll be suspended for breaking the rules.

While I am supervising them and there is the possibility I'll see a /say - I am not always playing a character with them while they're playing. It isn't so easy to properly supervise them while also playing my own character but we do it from time to time.

Now let's take a real-world example: Let's say the door bell just rang and the kids ran downstairs to see who it was. A GM shows up, says something in /say, and then before the kids even get back to their computer they're all 3 suspended for a week.

Now I understand the argument that it's unlikely to happen to somebody that's standing still and not fighting anything. But let's say they're in a zone where other people are killing nearby. Here's another real-world game mechanic - let's say the pick they were in collapsed so now they're actually standing on top of a group of active players and they're AFK.

I mean to anybody on the outside looking in - they're obviously just standing there soaking in EXP and are as a result breaking the rules with 'unattended gameplay'.

Neither of these is farfetched. The door bell does ring and when it does the kids do go running. GMs do show up and do very quick AFK checks in /say and then suspend you for a week.

I'm not saying AFK checks shouldn't happen. I am not saying there aren't people that are gaining unattended experience / playing unattended. I'm not saying that cheaters shouldn't reap what they sew. I'm saying that innocent people are getting caught up in the current method and that the false positive rate is too high. Just because it hasn't happened to you does not mean it's not a problem.

First they came for me, and you did not speak out.
Next they come for you, and there will be nobody to speak out for you.

I am not trying to get my suspension lifted. I am trying to affect change so that a more appropriate AFK check can be found and implemented. I understand that there are limited GMs and they have limited time - I'm not going to make a staffing argument. That said an AFK check should not be used only on the basis of it being quick it needs to be effective as well. You are always going to have false positives and false negatives but the current system, in my honest opinion, isn't properly balanced.

Just as there are people getting suspended that shouldn't there are plenty of others that should be suspended and aren't. Basically it depends on whether somebody has petitioned you or not. I'd venture to argue that you could probably get most people in this game that aren't aware of having to keep an eagle eye on "/say" a 7 day suspension.

That may be but it hasn't been made clear. In my petition they stated that my suspension was essentially for failure to respond to a GM. The suspension wasn't because I had done something else and they just happened to be sending me a /say. Responding to a GM is in the terms of service. If I violated some other suspension-worthy section of the Terms of Service I doubt a /say would be applicable so it's unlikely to just be a courtesy. It is specific to this.

That's interesting - do you have a lot of experience with it? I had no issues all the way back to 1999 up until February of this year.

I did get a /tell from a GM a few months ago asking me if I was there. I said I was and they told me to have a great day to which I reciprocated. If they would have checked me in /say I most likely would have been suspended as I'd not have seen it.

That's what I thought as well but 2 suspensions in under 3 weeks on 1 character but nothing on the other has me wondering.

I'm not doing anything different on the two and they're quite often together.

The suspension on the 19th, 3 of us in the group got suspended, 3 of us did not. Nobody said anything about seeing or responding to a /say and I didn't see one.

I for one am grateful to the new owners for finally cracking down on the rampant AFK farming.

Please go after the blatant 4+ boxers on Aradune next.

ya mean 2+... since you are only allowed to play TWO on Aradune... (2+ means MORE than if anyone doesn't know)

The rules depend on how much the GM had to drink before work, they may not even know what server they are on much less remember the rules. Also, each GM seems to have their own personal rulebook.

I think it would actually be 3+. It actually means "three or more". 2+ would include 2, and 2 are permitted so that's not accurate .

Wrong. It's 82.33%, repeating, of course.

We have reached a new low.

What I don't get is how they miss people who box an entire raid on Aradune. At some point you wonder who those people know.

If nobody is petitioning them ... or they're playing outside of the hours of ~9 AM and 2 PM ET - nothing is going to happen. GMs simply aren't available outside of DBG's business day.

The people breaking these rules in massive ways know this.

Just a thought, but maybe this GM got the rulesets for Aradune and Rizlona switched around? Human errors happen... but a formal apology would undo some of damage this confusion has caused.

Making the official rulesets around boxing a lot less speculative with clauses for "petition abuse" would also go a long way at this point.

With any service operating 24/7 there is always someone watching. If they aren’t actively watching, its reactive via alerting or whatever. They know who the people boxing raids are and they were probably watching well before the petitions started coming in after the knucklehead posted the video.

Silence doesn’t mean ignorance.

But multiple years and multiple servers of them doing nothing about it implies acceptance.

I completely ignore /say whether I'm playing 1 character or boxing 3. I might catch a hail or a say on my primary character but I will never catch it on my boxes. I don't even pay attention to the box screens. Boxing a mage takes 2 keys (1- assist malo pet 2- nukes, rarely 3- activate burns). Cleric takes more buttons but really since I often heal from setting the cleric Xtar to match my primary character group window I have no reason to look at either box character. Say is a terrible way to try to interact with people.

DPG I sent this months payment via /say. Let me know when you get it.

What if the GM's don't speak English and have never played the game?

I agree and it's an unfortunate situation because the lack of respect from the player base is evident. If it were me, I'd strike fear into the hearts of every cheater.

And, I'd absolutely file a lawsuit against the ex-employee writing cheat software.

You (we) may view it as parasitic but DBG likely views it as symbiotic. If this ex dev didn't create the software then there wouldn't be 54 man armies. "Great!" you say, but dbg sees 54 less subs. Unless your argument is the removal of all these super armies would result in at the very least an equal amount of 1-2 boxers playing just as long it's in dbg's interest to keep em around.

I am probably the most inattentive player in the game. Really bad, I mean I actually fall asleep at the keyboard. If I am doing anything, unless I get a tell and it opens a new chat window, its gone.

What I would like as an added feature just so you wouldn't have to be bothered setting audio triggers up is GM anything, like tells or says, sets off a client side sound file. Just something simple like a human voice saying 'Wake up sleepy head or I will ban you!"